1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an artificial tree system adapted to change between a collapsed state for storage and an assembled state for operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
As part of the celebration of the Christmas season, traditionally people bring a pine or evergreen tree into their home to decorate it with ornaments, lights, garland, tinsel, and the like. More traditionally, people obtain a cut, natural pine tree and bring it into the home for decorating and displaying over the Christmas season. Natural trees, however, can be quite expensive and are recognized by some as a waste of environmental resources. In addition, such trees can be messy, leaving both sap and needles behind after removal, and requiring water to prevent drying out and becoming a fire hazard. Each time a natural tree is obtained it must be decorated, and at the termination of the Christmas season the decorations must be removed. Because the needles have dried and may be quite sharp by this time, removal of the decorations can prove to be a painful process. Also, oftentimes the natural tree is disposed in landfills, further polluting these overflowing settings. Further, a natural tree, especially with dried needles and limbs, becomes a potential fire hazard.
To overcome the disadvantages of a natural tree and still celebrate with a Christmas tree, a great variety of artificial trees are available. For the most part, these artificial trees must be assembled for use and disassembled after use. Artificial trees have the advantage of being usable over a period of years and thereby eliminate the annual expense of purchasing live trees for the short holiday season. Further, they help reduce the chopping down of trees for a temporary decoration, and the subsequent disposal, typically in a landfill, of same.
Artificial trees can be made of synthetic materials that are more fire resistant than the natural trees. Advantageously, they require no watering and they need less protection than natural trees from bumps and scraps that strip needles from limbs. In addition, because they can be machine-made, they may also be fashioned to a near perfect symmetry.
Even the advantages of natural trees are not lost with use of artificial trees. The versatility of modern materials in the texture, color, and shape of evergreen needles bring visual warmth to the artificial product. Room deodorants and other such means can duplicate the aroma of a natural tree. Moreover, many attempts have been made to make artificial Christmas trees that are substantially ready when taken from storage.
Generally, most artificial Christmas trees comprise a multiplicity of separate branches each formed of a plurality of plastic needles held together by twisting a pair of wires about them. In other instances, the branches are formed by twisting a pair of wires about an elongated sheet of plastic material having a large multiplicity of transverse slits. In still other artificial Christmas trees, the branches are formed by injection molding of plastic.
Irrespective of the form of branch, the most common form of artificial Christmas tree comprises a wood-simulated trunk having a plurality of spaced apart apertures for receiving the branches therein to thereby hold the branches in radially extending relation to the trunk to form the artificial Christmas tree. For purposes of storage, the branches are removable, requiring the repositioning of the branches on the trunk each time the tree is reassembled. The difficulty of this task is, however, somewhat reduced by color coding the apertures on the trunk with the ends of the branches.
To provide a tree that can be stored without occupying an unduly large amount of space and yet to avoid the need for totally dismantling the tree at the end of each Christmas season and reassembling at the beginning of the next, it has been contemplated to permanently pivotably affix the artificial branches of an artificial Christmas tree to the trunk to permit movement of the branches between an outwardly deployed position and a storage position in which the branches lie close to the trunk and thereby occupy a comparatively small space.